Well, I found out yesterday that due to my success at GDC and my knowledge of the game industry, I’m being promoted to an Accounts Manager Sales Representative. Since the company I work for, Liquid Development, is an art contractor and sales are very important, this is a pretty cool deal. I’d never imagined that being a geek and learning about video games could be good for my career. haha
It looks like I’m going to be voluntarily devoting slavish amounts of time to books on sales, marketing (yay!), communication and psychology. I find it interesting that after only having been here 5 months that I’m already apparently on the management fast-track or however that goes. I’m still not sure if I’m even gong to be doing art anymore!
Six months ago, if you’d have told me I was going to be where I am now, I’d have laughed and called you crazy. And yet, here I am. How improbable, and how promising. 🙂
My only real concern is that if I ever go to another company and want to simply be an artist, that my quasi-managerial experience will make me appear overqualified. I suppose that’s not something I need to worry about for now, though. Right now my only concern is that I may not be learning fast enough or kicking enough ass.
I’m REALLY excited about finally being in a position where my mind will be fully engaged! I’ve been on such a reading kick lately that I’ve actually been passing up drinking in favor of reading. Now, I enjoy my alkymahol, but reading is my lifeblood.
In the past, I’ve only felt productive when I’m working on something artistic. I’ve always been driven to feel productive to the point that I feel a little guilty when I’m doing something else. Lately, though, I’ve made a transition so that I only really feel like I’m making progress if I’m reading a book and learning something new.
That’s been a strange adjustment because I’ve always resisted forms of work or effort that don’t show tangible results. Even in school, I HATED studying because I felt like it was wasting time since I wasn’t writing out the answers and actually finishing my work. I’m not sure what changed in me, but I think I like it.
It seems that every time I’m about to make a change in my life – a mental or attitude change – my mind automatically and seamlessly makes the transition with little or no effort. If I’m not ready to do something, it’s a massive struggle, but when I finally am, it’s simple. It’s odd, as if there was some sort of set pattern in my life unlocking new features as I progress.
It was like that when I learned to walk, and then when I learned to speak, then when I started texturing, then when I moved out on my own, and now again when my brain feels like it’s ready to absorb information as fast as my mind can process it. I’ve never understood how or why that happens, but it seems that there’s fuck-all I can do about it, so I may as well get used to it. 😉
Funny thing of the day: I’m paying my parents back gradually for old cel phone bills and such, and in the first check I sent to my mom, who’s a fanatic Christian psycho, in the Memo field I wrote the check as being for “Greased Spikes and Suckling Pigs for SATAN WORSHIP.” She emailed me back saying how hurt she was that I would do that and how it was disturbing that I thought that was funny and all that. I think it’s funny that she didn’t realize that her response made it THAT much funnier. 🙂
That’s all for now.